I think it's less about Chinese versus non-Chinese, and more about $80 phones versus $800 phones. When you're selling a fully-functional smartphone for $80, you have to have a secondary income stream from someone besides the handset purchaser. Blu, a Florida-based company that sells super-cheap Android phones, has been blocked from selling phones on Amazon over similar issues.

And on the other hand, you'll notice that high-end phones from Huawei and Motorola aren't on this list. Because this sort of software isn't tolerated on $400-$800 phones regardless of country of origin.

I'm not defending OnePlus. Classic example of, if it seems too good to be true, it is. They sell high end hardware at low or medium prices. Obviously something is up, even though this time they're not on this list. I knew about their other issues and given their unbelievable pricing, I'm not surprised.

Motorola, however, prices its products appropriately and predictably for what you get.

It's not just low prices that should raise a red flag as far as security is concerned. Low-margin products from a small company generally translates into very limited R&D. Flashing an open-source, trusted ROM, such as LineageOS 15.1, will bring you peace of mind in the sense that you know what it comes bundled with, and the security patch level will be recent or the latest. I would never have bought a Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro if I didn't feel confident it would have decent developer traction, and I would have flashed a phone from OnePlus out of similar concerns.

Heck, Google themselves didn't really pick up the fight against iOS in terms of security until the OG Pixel, but neglect is of course not as bad as intentional backdoors or outright trojans.

someone who should not be on ANY list but the orange ****gibbon has them there is Hauwei! They make great products, they DON'T steal your data....take off the tinfoil hats America, and they are reasonably priced.